I have lost count of the number of times I have read this book. The last time was aloud to my (then) teenage daughters. The first time I read it I was quite young and I was captivated by the fact that Jane was inwardly vehement, passionate and rebellious, yet outwardly small and plain. I identified with that contradiction strongly. I love the grand guignol of Thornfield and the mad Bertha Rochester. I love that Rochester must be tamed and Jane made independent before Bronte allows them to marry. It is time I read it again. As a girl, Jane Eyre gave me hope.

A local Nigerian writer, Tola Adeniyi, remembers how his youth in The Sun News:

I had earlier started off as an Akewi on Radio Nigeria at 16, published Teen Agers Must Repent at 17 and published Aye Ode Oni (Yoruba poetry) at 18. It is gratifying that literary giant Chinua Achebe gave me permission to be the first playwright to adapt his all time best Things Fall Apart into TV and stage play in 1965. The play was taken round the country in early 1966. This rare opportunity encouraged me to adapt Cyprian Ekwensi’s Iska, James Ngugi’s Weep Not Child and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre for the stage.

In the 19th century, fastidiousness was not only considered normal for men, it was expected. “Victorian fiction is abundant with examples of fastidious bachelors,” the Victorian expert Maeve Adams told me, citing Roger Hamley of “Wives and Daughters,” Edward Rochester of “Jane Eyre” and Sherlock Holmes. “By counter-example, those who fail at being (or remaining) fastidious, in appearance or morals, are justly punished in very satisfying ways with death, dereliction or the greatest tragedy of all, permanent bachelorhood.” (Amanda Marcotte)

“Shades” is basically a retelling of a Brontë gothic. The brooding, Byronic Mr. Rochester is channeled by the emotionally imprisoned Christian. The determined, romantic Jane Eyre character is embodied by the plucky Anastasia. She’ll learn what’s locked inside him and they shall know true love. (Stephen Fay)

The Oregonian publishes the obituary of Stefan Minde and remembers that,